


The art of painting with your fists clenched

by malixa



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M, Vomiting, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 18:58:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1560677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malixa/pseuds/malixa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian’s got blood covering his face and he still looks beautiful with a slightly bruised cheek. Ian kisses the top of Mickey’s head and Mickey can’t remember ever feeling this good.</p><p>He knows that this will be a long road, but he and Ian have crossed oceans before. The only difference is that this time Ian crosses alone, but Mickey will always bring him back to the shore and that is what he intends to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The art of painting with your fists clenched

**Author's Note:**

> Had to upload this again   
> because I'm an idiot.
> 
> Anxious as hell to upload this.
> 
> Comments and criticism are   
> massively appreciated.

Mickey is three and paints potato mash handprints on the kitchen wall. His mother lets him jump out of his seat, his t-shirt and hands covered in the goo as he steps up to the wall. She doesn’t even say anything when he leans his small hands up and stick his palms to the kitchen wall; His mother laughs at him and tells him he’s creative. She made the potato mash runny; the way she knows Mickey loves it. It’s clings to the wall and stays there until his mother tells him she has to wash it away so his dad won’t see it. Her eyes are tired and Mickey doesn’t know why. She says she will buy him real paint one day.

Mickey is six and all though his mom haven’t bought him paint yet, the dirt in their backyard seems good enough for him. It’s been raining for the last days and the dirt is wet and muddy. He picks up a stick and draws his brothers and his sister in the mud; he leaves out his father and draws his mother with a smile. He wishes there always were a smile on her face and that his dad would stop making it go away. Rain starts falling from the sky and his mother’s happy face disappears. His mother sneaks him inside and tells him that she’ll get him real paint one day.

Mickey is twelve and he doesn’t want to paint anything but he ends up doing so anyways. His dad is out and his mother has slit her wrists, the blood is everywhere and he ends up with it on his hands. She’s still warm, and Mickey scrambles over to her on his knees and hands and he paints the floor with her blood. He holds her in his arms and wishes the rain would wash the blood away too.

Mickey is fourteen and he is way too drunk but he still draws his mother and Mandy. He draws them with smiling faces embracing each other. He wishes that his mother had left sooner, maybe it would have hurt less, maybe that would have stopped Mickey from hearing Mandy crying in her room and tears painting black streaks under her eyes. Maybe it would have stopped him from drenching his insides with Whiskey. He hides his drawing under the bed, hopes the urge in his fingers disappears.

Mickey is fifteen and he inks his knuckles. It seems like a good idea, if the writing itself doesn’t send a message he knows for sure his fists will. He’s angry and it burns in his bones. He paints with the writing on his knuckles, paints someone’s face with blood. He doesn’t know whose it is but it works just as good as his mother’s. After all, his mum never got him any paint and this is what he’s got. He cracks someone’s nose and his father seems proud so see him with bruises that aren’t created by himself. He smiles at his father and hopes he chokes in his sleep.

Mickey is sixteen and he draws Gallagher asleep on his bed with freckled skin and floppy hair. He hides the drawing and burns it later; he doesn’t think he should draw Gallagher anymore. He does anyway, keeps drawing him and keeps fucking him. He draws Ian in his mind, savors every little detail of him but hides it well. He takes in Ian’s rosy cheeks, the way his smirk is lopsided and how he bites his lip when he tries not to smile.

Mickey is seventeen and he paints Ian’s cheeks red when Mickey says he missed him. He doesn’t mean to, but both his and Gallagher’s footprints are painted in the dirt of the dugout, their footprints are proof that they were there, that Gallagher was there. Mickey thinks the bruises that Ian leaves on his hips looks like fucking masterpieces and he hopes they never go away.

But they do go away, and what comes next is worse than what he could have imagined. The russian has covered his skin in her perfume and he spends an eternity in the shower trying to wash it off him. Not just the russian, but the marks of Ian too, the marks he's not allowed to have. Mickey vomits twice and it feels like proof of what's inside of him.

Mickey fills the walls of the abandoned building with bullets. He wants to put them in Ian’s body as well; he wants to paint the whole world with bullets. Ian yells at him and Mickey paints with his fists clenched again, leaves blood and tears on Ian’s face. Mickey is eighteen and he wishes he were still a minor. The woman is standing in front of him and he doesn’t want this, any of this. The ring that’s placed on his finger makes it hard to paint things he loves...loved. Ian walks out of the door and he walks out of Mickey’s life, but Ian never leaves Mickey’s mind. Mickey doesn’t draw anymore; he doesn’t paint anything else either.

When Mickey finds Ian in a place he doesn’t belong he has paint of him that shouldn’t be there. It’s too heavy and too black around his eyes and he fucking hates it. It doesn’t belong there and he wants to wash it away and have Ian back. He eventually brings Ian back but something is wrong and he doesn't know what.  
Mickey looks around uncertain, but he makes up his mind when he sees Ian’s eyebrow rise, and Mickey wants to so he does. Mickey kisses Ian with all he’s got and he swears Ian paints his insides with fire and fills his lungs with smoke. He feels warm inside and Mickey paints Ian’s lips with his. He feels safe when he says “Together” with a quiet voice and the guy just smiles and tells him he’s lucky.

Mickey yells in the christening of his son and his father sees red. Both Ian and Mickey paint with their fists that night. They paint with their own blood as much as other’s and Mickey laughs when it’s over. Ian’s got blood covering his face and he still looks beautiful with a slightly bruised cheek. Ian kisses the top of Mickey’s head and Mickey can’t remember ever feeling this good.

Mickey wakes up first and traces his fingertips over Ian’s face. Ian doesn’t move that day, doesn’t get out of bed and yells at Mickey when he talks to him. It makes the blood in Mickey’s veins feel like poison and the air he breathes seems to disappear. Ian lies there for days and nobody can get him to rise. The pills that Lip gave Mickey might be the wrong dosage and after the research Mickey has been doing lately he knows he shouldn’t give them to Ian. He does anyways, crushes them up in his food and in his drink and it makes Mickey feel like a liar and fills his insides with guilt.

It takes a couple of days and Ian actually does things by himself, he showers and he manages more food than before. Mickey talks him into seeing a doctor, and the hospital makes Mickey fear he will once again end up in someone’s blood again.  
He knows that this will be a long road, but he and Ian have crossed oceans. The only difference is that this time Ian crosses alone, but Mickey will always bring him back to the shore and that is what he intends to do. Mickey spends the next days painting nothing but traces of his fingertips and kisses on Ian’s shoulders. He knows they’ll defeat this, he knows that Ian will be okay.

Ian wakes up that morning and he smiles at Mickey for the first time in so long and Mickey swears that his insides are filled by nothing else than Ian. That’s the only thing Mickey’s ever wanted.

Ian falls asleep early that night. Mickey decides he wants to paint Ian again, he pulls down the posters of his bedroom wall until the white paint peaks out underneath. Mickey uses real paint and paints Ian asleep on the bed. He paints Ian’s hair vibrant and real, he paints every fucking freckle and the small scar he has on his collarbone from Mickey’s teeth. He paints Ian’s strong jawline and he paints Ian’s lips. When Ian wakes up he stares at Mickey’s work with nothing but a smile on his face and wonder. Ian’s face is radiant and Mickey thinks he looks like beautiful. There is nothing else Mickey would rather see than Ian's smile, Mickey never stops painting Ian again.

**Author's Note:**

> As someone with bipolar disorder and various other mental problems I am painfully aware that painting and kissing does not cure mental illness. It's more of a symbolic story than anything else.


End file.
